Multi-racial crowd in Troy, New York rescue arrested fugitive slave

04/27/1860

A fugitive slave from Virginia named Charles Nalle who had been living in Troy, New York for eighteen months was betrayed, arrested, and turned over to the local commissioner for return to his owner. A multi-racial crowd gathered at the commissioner's office and, despite a writ of habeas corpus from a sympathetic New York judge, forcibly freed Nalle. He was recaptured and then freed once again before being spirited out of the town. (By John Osborne)

Source Citation:

"The Slave Rescue at Troy," New York Times, May 1, 1860, p. 1.

Francis Vincent, Vincent's Semi-Annual United States Register.... 1st of January and 1st of July, 1860 (Philadelphia: Francis Vincent, 1860), 334.